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creating a reliable, vigorous sourdough starter from scratch

Welcome to mama eats, a twice-weekly newsletter (Tues. & Sat.) inspired by a simple + seasonal home life. This week’s post, a tutorial on creating a sourdough starter from scratch, is free to all readers, barring the video of me making the starter, which is viewable to paid subscribers. I try to provide as much free content as possible, however, this newsletter is a labor of love and I am a busy mother of three. If you have the means and find value in what I share, please consider becoming a paid subscriber, which also gives you the benefit of access to the growing archive (posts over a month old).

Quite a few years ago now, I started baking sourdough bread. I was absolutely terrible at it at first, but over the years I’ve learned so much and now I can bake a pretty excellent loaf. I think anyone can, if you want to. Sourdough is a combination of being precise with measurments, and learning the visual/tactile cues- being able to read those signs. Your loaves will only get better with time and it is such a handy skill to know. Be patient with yourself as you learn, and don’t give up.

Whenever I share a loaf I’ve baked, I always get questions on how to begin, with a fresh starter. It’s really quite simple to get one going, just mixing flour and water together and letting it ferment, controlling it by removing some and feeding it more flour and water at regular intervals. The only special ingredient you need is a scale- if you don’t have one, they’re not too terribly expensive, and I find it to be one of my most useful and loved kitchen tools. I use it daily. This is the model that I use (mine is over a decade old and works perfectly)

For this post, I created a new starter from scratch, to document what it looks like at each step of the way, as I know that visual cues can be so helpful when you’re not sure what to look for. You can find the video of each day’s process at the very end of the post.

the things you’ll need:

Flour: My top tip is to use rye flour if you can at all get your hands on it. Rye is incredibly reliable for creating strong fermentation, and is forgiving of neglect/not being exactly precise on feeding timing, much more so than all purpose or whole wheat flour, in my experience. I get mine from my co-op’s bulk bins.

Water: Tap water is often treated with chlorine and chloramines and impedes fermentation. I use filtered water.

Temperature: Fermentation is most active and consistent in a warm environment. In the winter months, this can be especially important. I keep mine on top of our water heater, which gives off a bit of heat. In the oven with the light on is another good place, or near a fireplace or other heat source.

Container: I like to use a glass jar, it can be any kind of clean glass jar with a wide mouth. Reuse one or thrift one or buy one! The one I use is this Weck jar- all parts are glass, without ridges or anything that makes it hard to clean. Make sure it’s at least a pint size to allow for expansion during fermentation.

One other thing I want to say, is that you do not need to use hundreds of grams of flour and water each time you feed. That is just a lot of discard to throw away or use up. I always do 30-50g for feedings, unless I need more for baking. It’s much more manageable and it can be a smaller jar on your counter, too.

the process:

I. First day.

Place your jar on the scale and write down the weight in grams of the jar on the lid or bottom with a permanent marker, plus 50g- this way we know how much to leave in the jar when we feed it next. For example, my empty jar weighed 314g, plus 50g (the amount of starter we want to leave in the jar each time) = 364g, so I wrote 314+50=364 on the lid. Mix 50g dark rye flour and 50g water together in a small jar (I use a pint mason jar). It will be a thick paste. Let sit on the counter, either with the lid just set on top (not screwed on) or, covered with a cloth like a napkin- this keeps any bugs/dust/contamination out, but still lets air through.

II. Second day.

Scoop out all but 50g of the mixture and discard. To do this, place the jar on the scale, and remove starter until the weight is the same as what you have written on your jar (for mine, 364g). Again, feed with 50g dark rye flour and 50g water.

III. Third day and fourth day.

Each day, at around the same time, repeat the same method above of removing all but 50g starter, then feeding the 50g dark rye flour and 50g water.

IV. Fifth day

Do the feeding as usual, but after feeding, place a rubber band on the outside of the jar at the same height as where the top of the starter is. That way, it gives you a mark to measure against for how long it’s taking to double. Replace in your warm spot and watch to see when it doubles, it should take less than 12 hours.

V. Sixth and seventh day

On the sixth and seventh days, we are going to feed the starter twice a day to get it ready to bake a loaf of bread. I feed mine at 6 am and 6 pm, you can choose a different time as long as it’s about 12 hours apart. You should see even more active fermentation. If you are still not seeing reliable fermentation, just keep feeding it twice a day until things are active, rising/doubling within the same time frame, and making sure it is living in a warm enough environment.

VI. Maintaining the starter

Your starter is active and ready to make bread! If you will only bake bread once a week or so, you can keep your starter in the fridge and pull it out 2 days before making bread- feed it twice a day for the two days before making the levain for your bread recipe. If you plan to bake more often, keep it on the counter- I do this, and feed it once per day until 2 days before I bake bread, then feed twice a day for those two days before making my levain.

If your starter is very active and you wish to feed it with all purpose flour instead of rye flour for convenience, you can do that at this point. As long as your starter is reliably active, you can feed it with the flour you wish, keeping the feeding amounts the same.

In the summer months, since it is much warmer in the house, causing the starter to double rapidly, I feed with room temperature water and remove all but 10g of starter before feeding.

For paid subscribers, find the video below documenting the steps of creating the starter and what it looks like as it progresses. Feel free to comment below if you need help or have questions about the process! Thank you so much for supporting this newsletter. xx A